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Palestine's Asian Cup preparation begins to take shape

With less than 150 days to go until the Asian Cup starts Palestine's preparations have begun to take shape.

Palestine's first litmus test will be the Peace Cup, a four team tournament hosted by the Philippines featuring Chinese Taipei and Myanmar. Palestine will be reunited with two teams they beat en route to claiming the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup title and Asian Cup qualification. In Chinese Taipei, Palestine will face a team they famously obliterated 8-0 during 2006 World Cup qualification.

The tournament has been organized so that Palestine and Philippines meet with the title (potentially) to play for. Palestine open play on September 3rd against Raddy Avramovic's Myanmar before facing Chinese Taipei and Philippines on September 6th and 9th, respectively.

Full fixture list after the jump...

Palestine's Friendly dates as they appear on FIFA.con

More friendly dates follow in October with a double header against India slated for October 6th and 9th. The team will then fly to Morocco to face what is expected to be a side made up of domestic players on the 15th.

Palestine is in talks with the Uzbek federation for friendlies during the November window (10th-18th). They are also waiting on a reply from several Gulf federations for friendlies that could be held during this period or just before the start of the Asian Cup.

Dates of a pre-Asian Cup camp have yet to be released. Palestine have scheduled a friendly on December 21st against China- an encounter that could take place en route to, or in, Australia.

All of Palestine's encounters fall on FIFA days with the exception of the Morocco encoutner (the window ends on the 14th). Although the China game falls outside the window, Palestine will be able to call up their players in accordance to the Asian Cup regulations. The deadline for registering the final squad fall on December 30th; Palestine will be required to submit a preliminary squad of up to 50 players on December 9th.

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